Rupert Holmes Joins J2 Spotlight for "Escape" Cabaret at AMT Theater

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J2 Spotlight presented Rupert Holmes (in person!) & others singing his songs

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What a treat to have the songwriter in the house – not just to lend support or bask in the glow of admiration and the enjoyment of his songs being performed, but to participate – both singing and sharing anecdotes about his career. In the case of the merry May 19th event presented by J2 Spotlight Musical Theater Company, the honored guest and active participant was Rupert Holmes in the company’s cabaret series. A production of The Mystery of Edwin Drood, the composer-lyricist-bookwriter’s musical (with a little help from “co-writer” Charles Dickens ), was then running in the same venue (the AMT Theater on West 45th Street), so Mr. Holmes and the other performers (including several veterans of various J2-produced musicals) were standing against the set for that production.

The evening of his songs was titled after his non-showtune hit record about a guy placing a personal ad – “Escape (The Pina Colada Song)” — and he jokingly said he was offended by the title of the cabaret program, “ Escape”: The Music of Rupert Holmes , pretending he didn’t catch the meaning the punctuation provides, as if he thought it was meant as an insult to his music, to be read as a suggestion to actually “escape the music of Rupert Holmes .” He talked about the creation of the number, fueled by a desire to write story-songs and mentioned that the first line of the catchy chorus, “If you like pina coladas and being caught in the rain…” had been “If you like Humphrey Bogart …” and a preference for lo mein didn’t make the final draft of the lyric either! The number served as the fun finale, with the singers who’d entertained in the first half of the show returning to the stage to sing along.

Another prominent anecdote involved the time he got an unexpected phone call long ago, before he was especially well-known, and the voice on the other end said, "Hi. This is Barbra Streisand . I heard some of your songs and I'd like to talk to you about ..." And his initial response was, "That is the worst Barbra Streisand impersonation I've ever heard." Well of course it was the real Barbra Streisand who was genuinely impressed with his writing and wanted to record some of his material, which she did. He presented a gentle treatment of the tale of timing gone awry, “Letters That Cross in the Mail,” and Eric Michael Gillett dramatically inhabited “Widescreen,” prefacing it with a personal story about his own very young immersion in movies. It was vulnerable and intense in the best way possible. His most recent credit with J2 Spotlight was playing the male lead in their season opener, Milk and Honey, and that production’s music director, Harry Collins , was on-stage to accompany him and the other J2 alumni (three from last year’s memorably smile-inducing Smile ).

Barbra Streisand also engaged Mr. Holmes to write songs for her character in the 1976 film of A Star Is Born. Those numbers were very present in the program: Kylee Brown created audience buzz with sultry version of "Queen Bee" (the genesis of which was the legendary lady having read about females in the insect world and how queen bees a hive's queen bee would mate with a male and then choose to kill him). And a piece about having goals galore, including moving into the White House and making radical changes to its appearance brought to mind recent news about that building; Catherine Deluce seemingly gave this glut of greed and need for having “Everything” everything in her arsenal of glee and gusto. (Too bad the set did not include “Lullaby for Myself,” written for the film by the songwriter, but not used; it’s a more interesting piece than either of the aforementioned ones.)

With bonhomie and remembrances of the TV series “Remember WENN” about a radio station’s staff, one of its cast members, Broadway veteran Mary Stout , took the stage for a gracious segment of stories and Holmes-crafted songs written for the episodes. Also appearing to good effect were Daniel Barrett , Yasmin Ranz-Lind, Megan Hasse , who was the ingenue in the J2 cast of The Mystery of Edwin Drood (the inclusion of the score’s “Moonfall” might have enticed those who hadn’t seen the production to do so, and was a welcome reprise for those of us who had been in the room where it happened the week before) and Robbie Rozelle of Center Stage Records who also talked about getting to know the man of the hour in connection with the labels recording of the revamped version of Gilbert & Sullivan’s The Pirates of Penzance, with additional material by Mr. H.

It was a lively night with the celebrant live and in person between live performances of his musical in a season of events that ended all too soon.

Visit www.j2spotlightnyc.com to follow the production group so you can be next in line for tickets when they announce their 2027 season .

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_Originally reported by [BroadwayWorld](https://www.broadwayworld.com/cabaret/article/Review-ESCAPE-THE-MUSIC-OF-RUPERT-HOLMES-Featured-the-Songwriter-Himself-Onstage-at-AMT-Theater-20260527)._